COUNCIL
Meeting of June 24th
The meeting was called to order by President Legler with 45 members present.
The Chair announced the death since the last meeting of the Council of Dr. John Shaw Billings and Mr. Charles Carroll Soule, and by unanimous vote of the Council the Chair appointed Dr. Herbert Putnam, R. R. Bowker and H. C. Wellman a committee to draft resolutions to be presented to the Association at large.
Dr. Bostwick as chairman presented the following:
REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON RELATIONS BETWEEN THE LIBRARY AND THE MUNICIPALITY
In presenting this final report, your Committee finds it necessary to consider and to give expression to two points of view, both of which are represented in its membership and neither of which can be neglected—one that believes that, owing to diversity of local conditions and of constitutional and other requirements in different parts of the Union, it is impossible to frame definitely a model library law or a model library section of a city charter, and the other, that without some such expression as can be given only in the form of a definite body of law of this kind, the recommendations of the Committee will necessarily be vague and will largely fail of effect.
Your committee has therefore thought it best in the first place to make a statement of the things that a library law or charter section should, in its opinion, aim to do, giving reasons where necessary; and in the second place to present a definite example of the way in which these things may be done, accompanied by a warning that before adopting it as a model in any specific instance, it should be carefully studied by some competent person and modified to suit the necessities of the case. Your committee realizes also that every state library law should contain provisions, such as those regulating the State Library and Library Commission, which do not fall within the duties assigned to this committee and hence are not touched upon in this report.